What was claimed: A video shows Russian president Vladimir Putin laughing with his face in his hands during a comedy routine in which Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to play the piano with his penis, before he became president of Ukraine.
Our verdict: False. These two clips are from different events and have been edited together to misleadingly make it appear as if President Putin was in the audience for the routine.
No such cardinal exists, and his photo was generated by artificial intelligence. In addition, the Vatican Bank does not hold accounts for governments, foreign individuals or clients unrelated to the Catholic Church or the Holy See.
WHAT WAS CLAIMED: The BBC reported on a foiled attempt by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's wife Olena to flee Ukraine.
OUR VERDICT: False. The news report is fake and is believed to be part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Claim: A Fox News broadcast labeled Kyiv (the capital of Ukraine) a Russian city on Easter 2025.
Rating: Mostly true.
What's True: The mistake appeared on LiveNOW from Fox, a news service delivered by Fox Television Stations.
What's False: However, while LiveNOW from Fox and Fox News are both part of the Fox Corporation, they are not interchangeable nor run by the same business within the corporation.
Fake.
Context: The image was a misleadingly edited screenshot of an article that ran in the New York Post. The real headline of that article was, "Meet the tough women leaders taking on Vladimir Putin."
A video of NATO troops and armoured vehicles in Estonia in February is not evidence of a recent military escalation with Russia, as has been suggested online.
VERDICT: Miscaptioned. The video shows NATO troops in Tallinn on February 24, 2025, for Estonia's Independence Day, according to NATO and British officials. Photos posted online in 2024 suggest the three armoured vehicles in the video were in Estonia long before February.
On 4 April 2025, Russian forces launched a ballistic missile attack on a residential area in Kryvyi Rih. The missile, equipped with a cluster warhead, landed near a children's playground, causing heavy civilian casualties. Twenty people were killed, nine of them children. Video footage from the restaurant, which was also damaged in the strike, clearly shows that no military personnel were present at the time of the attack.
The claim circulating on Russian platforms that a Ukrainian soldier allegedly confessed to killing a child near Sudzha is either fake or at least unverified. The message was posted on a Facebook account that, according to available data, previously belonged to Ukrainian soldier Artur Yakovitskyi. His family has reported him missing - according to open sources, he disappeared near the settlement of Sudzha on 28 February 2025. On 28 March, a suspicious post appeared on his Facebook page, allegedly containing a confession to the murder. On 1 April, a screenshot of this post began actively circulating on pro-Russian Telegram channels. The image of the "murdered teenager" attached to the post was likely generated by artificial intelligence - this is supported by the analysis results of several AI detection tools.
WHAT WAS CLAIMED: A UK regional newspaper says 70,000 Ukrainian Soldiers died in Kursk.
OUR VERDICT: False. The newspaper front page is fake.
Telegram channels that spread this fake about Musk actually used a fragment of an interview he and Trump did in February. [...] During the program, Ukraine was mentioned once - by the host of the show. The discussion was actually dedicated to criticisms of DOGE's activities and a "constitutional crisis" in America. Elon Musk didn't mention Ukraine even once.